Second Language Acquisition

1 the cognitive revolution

2 Universal Grammar

3 second language teaching

Myths about language- language is designed by

human intelligence

- advanced civilisations have more complex languages

- people with more education speak their language better

- children learn language by imitating their parents

- the language faculty is part of general human intelligence

- language is a biological adaptation

- all languages are equally complex

- all speakers master language equally well

- children acquire language without instruction

- the language faculty is a specialised skill, different from other forms of cognition

Language is an instinct

(Pinker, 1994)• Language is creative• Language is universal

1. Complex language is universal 2. Children reinvent language3. Language has a seat in the brain

First language acquisition

Children have knowledge which they are never taught

•*is the unicorn that _ eating a flower is in the garden?

• He walks1. Person (I vs you vs he)2. Number (singular or plural)3. Tense (walks vs walked)4. Aspect (walk vs is walking)

• the wug test

The ‘wug’ test

They’re wugs

• This is a wug. • What are these?

Language has a seat in the brain

a) Broca's aphasia: • damage to frontal lobe of left hemisphere • leaves people without grammar • can produce content, but not grammatical words• cognition is otherwise preserved

Language has a seat in the brain

b) Specific Language Impairment:• hereditary problems with language• trouble with grammar, conversation effortful• otherwise normal IQs

Language has a seat in the brain

c) Williams syndrome: • retarded children with overdeveloped

language skills• chatterbox syndrome• imaginative conversation, rare

vocabulary• very low IQ, unable to take care of

themselves.

Nature versus nurtureThe central problem of language acquisition

(Lightfoot 1982: The language lottery)

Language competence

NATUREa) Is it part of our inherent

nature?b) Is it apparent from birth?

NURTUREa) Does it arise through

nurturing?b) Does it come through

contact with our environment, i.e., hearing others speak our language?

Innate knowledge (nature)alone

children are not born able to speak and understand a language.

wild children do not speak any language. So . . . some input is required for

acquisition to take place

Environmental stimulus (nurture) alone

speakers (even children) know things that they could not have learned from speech samples

native speaker competence is not explained by experience

it is underdetermined by the input.

Poverty of the stimulus

1. ungrammatical language: 5% of the language we produce is ungrammatical

2. finite number of sentences: We only hear a certain number of sentences, yet can produce any number

1. knowledge about language that is never taught

L1 acquisition like learning chess • by watching• no explanation of rules • 5% of moves illegal• don't know which.

the dog that tossed the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built

a) John is easy to please (it is easy for someone to please John)a) Mary is eager to please (Mary is eager to please someone)

Nature versus nurture?

1. Neither argument is satisfactory alone. • we are not born with language • our environment does not provide enough

information

1. How do we use our innate language capabilities (nature) to interact with our language environment (nurture)?

• logical problem of language acquisition • Universal Grammar (Noam Chomsky)